This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

The race to the Pan Am Games — and the pain it takes to make it

The journey to the Pan Am Games for some of Canada's fastest athletes has been filled with hardships, self-doubt and, in one case, tragedy. In the first of a series, the Star’s Kerry Gillespie and Steve Russell spent nine months documenting the quest to win a medal at almost any cost.

Gavin Smellie, Tremaine Harris, and Dontae Richards-Kwok sprint out of their start at a training camp in St. Kitts. The athletes are working to trim fractions of a second off their times — the difference between a medal and nothing on race day. (Steve Russell / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Crystal Emmanuel yells as she crosses the finish line during practice. (Steve Russell / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Crystal Emmanuel and Shai-Anne Davis race to the finish line in the 100-metre semi-final at the Ontario provincial track and field championships at the University of Windsor in June. (Steve Russell / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Desai Williams stands on the back of a starting block as Phylicia George takes off during training at York University. (Steve Russell / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Dontae Richards-Kwok leans into the finish line in the 100-metre semi-final at the Ontario provincial track and field championships at the University of Windsor this June. (Steve Russell / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Fawn Dorr, who competes in the 400-metre hurdles, clears one while training at York University. (Steve Russell / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

After the track workout, Crystal Emmanuel moves her attention to weightlifting at the gym. (Steve Russell / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Nikkita Holder looks down at the start line during practice. (Steve Russell / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Phylicia George works out with bungee cords attached to her as she runs in Basseterre, St. Kitts. (Steve Russell / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Sam Effah pins his bib to his singlet during this June's provincial track and field championships. It was his first race since a major surgery seven months ago. (Steve Russell / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Canadian sprinters practice at a hangar at Downsview Park in October after their usual indoor track at York University is resurfaced for the Pan Am Games. (Steve Russell / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Khamica Bingham races to the finish line during practice. (Steve Russell / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Fawn Dorr is on her hands and knees calling out for God. Kimberly Hyacinthe is in the hallway, throwing up in a garbage can. Sam Effah is sitting down and someone is trying to pull him up, saying, “I can’t let you sit still.”

It’s an odd scene to come across in an old Downsview airplane hangar repurposed into a soccer facility and now, with the coach’s shoe laces tying back the mesh netting, repurposed again to serve as a training space for many of Canada’s fastest men and women.

Those are the people rolling around on the ground, half hoping some act of magic will take away the pain coursing through every fiber of their being. That’s their human side. Their athletic side is actually pretty happy about the pain. This is how they are supposed to feel; it’s how they know they’re working hard.

Their effort on the track and in the weight room on this day in November, and the months on either side of it — long before the competition season even starts — is what will decide if these athletes are good enough to stand on the podium at the Toronto Pan Am Games in July.

Article Continued Below

Crystal Emmanuel and Shai-Anne Davis race to the finish line in the 100-metre semi-final during June's provincial track and field championships at the University of Windsor. (Steve Russell)

Spectators see the big moments — maybe fewer than 10 seconds in the men’s 100-metre final; a little over three minutes in the women’s 4x400-metre relay — but it is days like these that make, or break, a sprinter.

And, whether they win or lose on the day of the race, few people will ever know what they went through just to get to the start line: the struggles for funding and recognition, the injuries, the self-doubt, lack of a proper training facility when it mattered most, family pressures and the death of a teammate.

This is the story of the sprinters and hurdlers based at Athletics Canada’s eastern hub in Toronto. They’re training at Downsview because they’ve been made homeless by construction for the very Games they’ll be expected to medal at.

Their regular indoor track at York is being resurfaced to be used as a warm-up facility for the Pan Am Games. So, many of Canada’s medal hopes for these games and the Rio Olympics next year – their car trunks full of training equipment – are getting used to their unusual circumstances.

“It’ll be interesting to see how we pull this off,” head coach Anthony McCleary says.

In the coming months, they’ll train on borrowed soccer turf and football fields; will run hills, trying not to be freaked out by snakes in the brush; and fly to the Caribbean island of St. Kitts for three month-long training camps to get the quality outdoor training they simply can’t have in a Canadian winter.

These are the athletes who normally pop up on our television screens once every four years at the Olympics. Sometimes they succeed and win a medal. More often, they don’t. The difference between the two can be fractions of a second — nothing in the real world, but everything in their world on the track.

“Just stretch out your arm: that’s two tenths of a second and they’re training two, three, four years just to get that much faster,” assistant coach Charles Allen says. “The difference between an arm’s length is gold, sliver, bronze or nothing.

This block of training, when they build their base strength, is the hardest part of their year. This is where they cover the most distance and do the heaviest work in the weight room. It’s not fun, and the prospect of cheering crowds is too far away to even think about.

But it’s vital, and it’s called base for a reason: without it, the athlete falls down. Not literally, the way a building with a faulty foundation will, but in more subtle ways with injuries, no breakthrough performances and an inability to make it through the heats or get to the final with enough left in the tank to win the race.

Pain is inevitable, but the degree of suffering is optional. Each athlete has to decide how much they are able and willing to suffer.

“It’s easy to give up but what makes you strong is not giving up,” Hyacinthe says.

“That’s track and field in a nutshell,” Phylicia George agrees. “It’s a lot of work, hard work, with no guarantee that you’ll get anything from it but we kind of hold on to that glimmer of hope: it is going to happen, I am going to get on the podium and win a medal.”

Phylicia George works out with bungee cords attached to her as she runs in Basseterre, St. Kitts. (Steve Russell)

Those are thoughts for the end of the season. Here, at the start of it, “there’s something gratifying about doing a workout, dying, throwing up and then coming back and doing that same workout two weeks later and being like, ‘Oh, I finished strong,’” George says.

The women have just finished one of their 10 sprints, and Allen is rounding up the men for their next 250-metre run — he’s looking at his stopwatch, making sure they don’t get anything more than their allotted minutes of rest.

“Thirty seconds,” he shouts to the stragglers, “No excuses, no explanations.”

That neatly summarizes race day. They will win or they will lose and no one will care why it was one and not the other.

Effah is leaning against the wall, trying to look casual, but it’s obvious it’s helping hold him up.

“Ready to go?” a teammate asks.

“Yeah,” he says, “I have to be. This is what I signed up for.”

The Star’s Kerry Gillespie and Steve Russell spent nine months following some of the country’s fastest sprinters and hurdlers as they try to earn the right to represent Canada at the Toronto Pan Am Games in July. This is the first in a series.

Delivered dailyThe Morning Headlines Newsletter

The Toronto Star and thestar.com, each property of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, One Yonge Street, 4th Floor, Toronto, ON, M5E 1E6. You can unsubscribe at any time. Please contact us or see our privacy policy for more information.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com